1881.1 t)lJ [Brinton. 



las piernas. Goto, Vooahulario.) A modification of the root, to wit, q^aq, 

 means to open, generally, a door, window, etc. 



, The Abbe adds that the expression referred to by the writer of the Popol 

 Vuh as a common one to express the approach of day is no longer in use ; 

 but it had not become obsolete in Coto's time, as tlie following passage 

 shows : 

 " Escuritlad : una que ay quando quiere amancscer, vugh ; tan tlxalcin 



"vugh." 



Here we have the precise expression under consideration, and as it is 

 also given by Guzman ( Compendia de Nombres, p. 33) it is probably an 

 error of Brasseur's to consider it obsolete. 



So long, however, as there is no further evidence to support the identity 

 of Hun-ahpu-vuch with the dawn-heroes, w^e may reasonably explain 

 this supposed genesiac mj-tli as based on the homophony of vuc7i, fox, and 

 vuch, the darkening before dawn. Tliis homophony contains, indeed, rich 

 material for the development of an animal myth, identifying the fox with 

 the God of Light, just as the similarity of the Algonkin wauMsch, the dawn, 

 and waubos, the rabbit, gave occasion to a whole cycle of curious myths 

 in which the Great Hare or the Mighty Rabbit figures as the Creator of 

 the World, the Day Maker, and the chief God of the widely spread xll- 

 gonkin tribes.* 



The result of the above analysis is to assign Hun-ahpu-vuch the signif- 

 ication : "The One (or chief ) master of supernatural power, the Opos- 

 sum." 



A main reason why I retain the meaning Opossum is that the names 

 ■which follow are unquestionably derived from animals. The second is Hun- 

 AJipa-JJtiij,. The last factor, utiu is the wolf, the coj^ote, an animal which 

 plays most important parts in the native cosmogonical mj'ths all through 

 the Californian, Mexican and Central American tribes. In the Records 

 from Tccpan At Ulan it is related that when man "was first formed by the 

 power of the sacred Chay Abah, the knife-stone or obsidian, and placed 

 in the earthly paradise Paxil (the derivation of which name I shall con- 

 sider later) there came the coyote, utiu, and the crow, kooch, and were 

 about to destroy the maize harvests, but the coyote was killed, and thus 

 the grain "was saved. The remaining elements being the same I para- 

 phrase this : 



"The One (or chief) master of supernatural power, the Coyote." 



In the third name, ZaJci Nima Tzgiz, the first two words mean respec- 

 tively White, great ; the third is the common name for the pizote or badger, 

 an active little animal quite familiar to the Indians, and the name of 

 which, as we are informed by Father Goto, was currentl}' applied to an 

 active, lively lad. His words are : 

 "Pizote : vn animalejo como el tejon, o el mesmo, qiz; son caserositos, 



* I have traced the growth of this myth in detail in The Mytlis of the Netv World, 

 a Treatise o <■ the SjjmboUsm and Mijthologii of the Rid Race of America, Chap. VI, 

 (New York, 1876). 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XIX. 109. 3z. PRINTED DEC. 31, 1881. 



